Whitman concerned as HP shares plummet

After a few years of wrong-turns and aborted purchases, Hewlett-Packard is facing a crisis. CEO Meg Whitman, the company’s third in just over a year, warned analysts yesterday in New York to expect significantly lower revenues than previously expected, with a decline of around 12 percent this year. She said that the refocus being implemented within the firm would likely not bear serious fruits until 2016.

HP has struggled to replicate the success that saw it become one of the world’s leading tech firms in recent years. After seeing declines in the PC and printer sectors, the company attempted to expand into mobile phones and software, with mixed success. Their acquisition of Palm in 2010 for $1.2bn failed to attract phone customers away from rivals like Apple, while their buyout of UK software giant Autonomy for a vastly inflated $10.2bn last year has been widely criticised.

Whitman, appointed to succeed Leo Apotheker, blamed the chopping and changing of leadership as having “caused multiple inconsistent strategic choices and frankly some significant executional miscues. As a result, it’s going to take longer to right this ship than any of us would like.”

Another poorly executed acquisition, of EDS in 2008 for $14bn, was integrated into the company’s Enterprise Services division, and was seen as mostly responsible for an $8bn write-down in August

With such major misfires hampering HP’s position in the market, Whitman knows she has a challenge on her hands, adding: “We have much more work to do.”